Subscribe to blog updates via email »

September 2024 Income Report

October 25 2024 – 04:45pm

To listen to an audio version of this report, join the Patreon »

September’s revenue was $8,606, down from August’s $9,077. Profits were $5,745, up from August’s $5,082.

WANT TO WRITE A BOOK?
Download your FREE copy of How to Write a Book »
(for a limited time)

How to Sell a Book blocked by Amazon!

I interrupt my usual opening analysis with a very important announcement and call for help. Amazon has blocked the publish of my new book, How to Sell a Book.

I’m not able to edit the book’s details. I’m not even allowed to submit again with the same ISBN. It’s just blocked.

The TL;DR of how you can help are:

• Do you know anyone at Amazon? Please pass this along.
• Visit the Amazon page for the IngramSpark version of How to Sell a Book, to signal to their algorithm there’s interest in this book. Even better if you preorder a copy through there!

“What the hell happened!? Details, please!”

According to their Content Review Team, “We are unable to share further insight on this matter at this time.”

When I first submitted the book, I got a vague form email, listing a number of potential issues that may have applied to my book. They don’t tell you exactly what the problem is.

So I guessed they wanted proof of my claim of having sold 100,000 books, and sent them proof.

Then I got a response that the problem was that “book” was in the title. They think that’s “confusing or misleading,” because it’s a book.

Confused myself, I explained to them, Well, it’s a book about marketing books, so it’s a pretty straightforward title.

I got a response that they wanted proof of claims made in the title (I assumed the 100,000 books, again). I had already sent that, but okay, I just sent it again.

Then I got a response, again, that the problem was that “book” was in the title.

Skeptical I was talking to humans, I tried to reach a human. You can’t talk to the Content Review Team, but I called a rep through a different channel. That rep sent a message to the Content Review Team, then I got another message from the Content Review Team stating that there was still a problem with book being in the title.

I again explained that it’s a book-marketing book, the title is very straightforward, and provided examples of other books that have “book” in the title, including my own, How to Write a Book.

Then they blocked the book.

I’ve again called support, who sent a message to the Content Review Team, requesting an opportunity to propose a different title/subtitle, but I never heard back. I’ve also reached out to the one acquaintance I have who works at Amazon. Not many days have passed, but I haven’t heard back.

So I’m trying to shake this free by asking anyone who will listen if they know anyone at Amazon who can help me with this blocked book.

This book was the main focus of my creative energy for six months. Amazon is historically the source of 75% of the revenue I make from my books. Imagine going to work for six months, then being paid only 25% of what you’d originally thought!

So if you or someone you know works at Amazon, please help!

What do I do next?

In case I can’t find help, I’m considering what my options are, though I have to act carefully because, as you can see, Amazon can act in an unhinged manner, with severe consequences.

I’ve considered re-submitting the same book with a different title and/or subtitle, under a different ISBN, but will that cause more problems?

I’ve considered submitting a hardback version, with an altered title/subtitle, but could that cause more problems?

(I don’t currently have plans for a Kindle version of the book, due to Amazon’s pricing restrictions.)

IngramSpark version currently active on Amazon

The IngramSpark version is listed on Amazon, but until just a few days ago, it was not available for sale. Now it is!

I know from the out-of-stock issues I had early in the life of 100-Word Writing Habit that Amazon has a fickle algorithm that determines whether to keep an IS book in stock. Amongst the factors in that decision are how much traffic the book’s page is getting. I’ve generated some traffic to the page by including a link in some of my emails.

So the IngramSpark version is available, for now, but when I posted about this in the 20BooksTo50K Facebook, some people said allowing this book to publish through IS would get me blocked on both platforms! But when you publish through IS, it’s automatically included on Amazon, so not sure what I’d be able to do about it.

Nobody had personal experience with such a thing happening, but others did with not only having their books blocked, but their entire publishing accounts, with no explanation. Again, it’s scary what Amazon can do to an author’s career with no reason and no recourse.

This incident is probably just a bureaucratic system breaking things indiscriminately, but I can’t help but wonder if this has anything to do with what’s written in the book about selling directly, beating Amazon in price while doing so, or with me intentionally delaying the release on Amazon, in lieu of selling it directly.

This experience certainly makes me grateful for the baby steps I’ve taken over the years to start selling directly, and build a fully-fledged Shopify store, complete with books stocked in a warehouse.

In any case, if you want to read How to Sell a Book, it comes out soon and you can order it directly from me.

Revenue rebounding, profit stagnant

12-month average trailing revenue is rebounding. It’s at $77,256, after dipping to $70,175 in June. Last time it was higher was $77,654, in March.

But, 12-month average trailing profit is fighting to stay afloat. It’s at $44,580, which puts me well below the “teacher’s salary” level of $60,000.

So, revenue is rising, but profit isn’t. So my profit margin is lower. My profit margin over the past twelve months has been 136%. When 12-month average trailing profit peaked in January 2023, at $72,111, my margin was 154%.

Higher margins don’t necessarily mean high profits. The highest 12-month margin I’ve had was 210%, in January 2021, when my 12-month profits were $39,068. Nor are low margins great. They were at their lowest, 84%, in November 2019, when 12-month profits were $35,248.

Direct sales still strong

My profit margins are lower mostly because my direct sales are higher. With direct sales, I collect more revenue, taking in the full price of each book, but then I have more expenses, printing and shipping the books.

Direct sales were down this month, $539, from August’s $5,088. But in August I collected more than $4,000 for the 100 Journal Prompts Workbook Kickstarter.

In October I’ll have inflated direct sales earnings, from ending the preorder period for How to Sell a Book. As of this month, my 6-month average direct-sales portion of self-published books is 27.7%. Recall that at the beginning of the year I was only 30% confident I could grow that portion to 30%, but I now have a pretty good chance of achieving that unlikely outcome.

Wire-bound 100 Journal Prompts Workbook

Now that the premiere, hardback, edition of the 100 Journal Prompts Workbook has been shipped to Kickstarter backers, I’ve developed a more-affordable wire-bound edition. It looks really good, and the wire binding makes it easy to keep open and write in.

100-Word Writing Habit Bundles

The development of the wire-bound edition of the Journal Prompts Workbook completes the initiative I started much earlier in the year, of developing some companion products to bundle with the 100-Word Writing Habit book.

I’ve now photographed and posted the 100-Word Journaling Habit Starter Kit, which features the book, the wire-bound journal, and the wristband.

And of course you can buy bundles of the book with the wristband, or the workbook with the wristband.

The business motivation to create these bundles was the strange fact that 100-Word Writing Habit was the only book I could break even or come close to making a profit on by advertising with Meta Ads. I figured I could make more profit if there were some companion products customers could either buy at the same time, or purchase after enjoying the book.

Spiral-bound workbooks are on the way to my warehouse, so they’re not ready to ship quickly. But I’ve been able to sell a couple workbooks through Meta Ads, despite it saying “ships in 2–3 weeks” on the landing page. I haven’t had the same result trying to sell the Starter Kit, so I’ll have to test different ways to make that extra revenue.

Russian The Heart to Start deal!

The big anomaly in this month’s self published book revenue is $3,019 revenue for The Heart to Start’s wide sales. $3,000 of that is for a foreign-rights deal for a Russian version.

Given all Mind Management’s success, I’m surprised to get this deal for HTS instead. Perhaps MMT will get a similar deal some day. $3,000 is my second-biggest foreign-rights advance ever, so it appears Russia is a lucrative foreign-rights market. (My biggest advance yet was $4,000 for Korean rights to Digital Zettelkasten).

20% of that $3,000 advance went to my agent as commissions. As per usual, I don’t account for commissions in these reports. As per usual, when those commissions are 20%, I have second thoughts about that policy.

ActiveCampaign rate increase

My monthly fee for ActiveCampaign increased from $135 to $150, just from them raising their prices. I’m still grandfathered into a very cheap rate for the features I get.

I currently have more than 20,500 subscribers. The next level at which I have to upgrade my plan would be 25,000 subscribers. I could perhaps avoid that upgrade with some pruning, but it’s (hopefully) inevitable. I hope when that happens I’ll still have a low rate, because I’d have to monetize my list much more aggressively otherwise.

I’m still very happy with ActiveCampaign after eight (nine?) years. I no longer give other services a second thought.

If you’re looking for an ESP and try ActiveCampaign, please use my affiliate link.

Removing SendOwl affiliate

For a long time now, I’ve been reporting $5 of income from SendOwl, which is a payment processor I used for my Design for Hackers courses.

I’m sunsetting those courses, and thus my use of SendOwl. I have no plans to try to increase that affiliate revenue. Since the point of these income reports is to sharpen my decision-making, this revenue has no bearing on my decisions, and it’s such a small amount of money, I’m going to stop reporting it.

Thank you for interviewing me!

I was looking through my promotional checklist, and realized I overlooked sharing this one in my income reports, almost two years ago exactly. Check out my interview on the Stories with Rusty YouTube channel. Thank you Vedant Rusty for interviewing me!

New on Patreon: rhythmic editing

This month on Patreon, I’ve shared a bonus screencast showing how I edited the first pages on How to Sell a Book, using a technique I call “rhythmic editing.”

Look over my shoulder as I polished the first pages of my new book, analyzing rhythm, sentence structure, and making the occasional grammar correction.

I’ve been trying to add at least one new piece of bonus content per month over the past several months, just for Patreon supporters. Some other recent additions:

• Financial modeling and forecasting a Kickstarter campaign
• Setting up a book on BookVault and ordering an ARC
• My carry on travel packing and gadgets
• How I compile book-sales reports as a “wide” self-published author
• How I use Todoist for GTD and Mind Management
• Evaluating foreign-rights opportunities as a self-published author
• Quarantining and Warming Up New Email Subscribers from Facebook Lead Ads
• A tour of my Shopify store & Meta ads

Join the Patreon to get instant access to all these, plus audio versions of these reports. (Join through the website, not the iOS app, to avoid higher fees.)

Income

Book Sales

Misc. Products

Affiliates / Advertising

Reader Support

Services

Expenses

General

Advertising

Hosting

This post is filed under Income Reports.